Over the last couple days, weeks since the Mueller Report came out, there is this group, the loyalist camp, this glob of minions who are seen to be shuffling back and forth, on talking points, on opinions, all in order to protect their dear leader.

Illuminating that they believe they should have to, but anywho.

First the right flank of flakes is all going on about the report exonerating Trump, of the media misrepresenting it, now they’ve all been shuffled over to a new hole that’s opened up in this corrupt administration with the focus now on Mueller specifically. Attack, attack, attack.

It does seem rather amusing that they are bunched up in this knot of nuts, all being pushed around, used as a shield, and you really have to wonder if these men and women who are so loyal to this sleaze-bag actually even believe themselves the rhetoric they spout?

At some level I wonder if they do realize how corrupt Trump is, do see the hypocrisy in his campaign promises of draining the swamp, when in fact he has in reality just expanded the breadth and reach of the swamp, taken advantage of the swamp, and used it to protect his crooked house of white.

So at some point we all have to acknowledge that many on the right, and most of the GOP, see no issues with Trump because they want a dictator, they want to be pushed around, fed lies, and spend all their time protecting this whinny crooked leader they adore. For them the enemy is those on the left who are, gulp, heavens to murgatroyd, actually trying to maintain law and order, protect the constitution, and protect democracy? Well, that is how it looks.

Somehow THAT has become some sort of warped policy of the right, to not allow under any circumstances the long arms of governmental oversight to do their job and protect the institutions and leaders within the government from breaking the law, from not being called out for breaking the law, are trying to basically prevent these weak white men from destroying everything that America stands for.

It is no longer just hyperbole to suggest democracy itself is being threatened, as this division in the U.S. is no longer really at all to do with policy, it has become a battle to protect as much of the foundation as possible.

Institutions, from justice to journalism, all are under attack, and weakened day after day, month after month that this corrupted administration is in power.

It is important to understand that, and above all the crisis after crisis, whether the GOP or anyone on the right is willing to admit it, we are right now watching as a concerted effort is being hatched to weaken the whole structure that America was built upon.

Though, to say that was the objective from the beginning I believe would be a step too far, as in fact I think that was not in essence the aim, but it has just been for many of them the only way to protect this crooked man, and his crooked house of sleazebags and liars.

And, let’s be honest, most people are just not that sophisticated, their needs are simpler, more defined by living day to day, their job, the money they have in the bank, their children’s futures, their neighbourhoods, and not to such lofty things as the constitution and the rules that govern elected leaders. Many of them, if they could break the law to get what they want, they would, if like Trump the system would protect them. I mean, why not? Why not get want you want and screw the law?

Well, there is an underlying element of political philosophy to some of it, that the long arms of government have over the years begun to meddle too much in the lives of your average citizen.

However, are they really actually willing to destroy the whole shebang for, what? Some political chaos theory hatched out by some right-wing nut (Bannon and crew) with too much money and time on their hands? Profiteers who see the profit margins inherent to despotic governments, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, losing all sense of power they ever had to merely eking out an existence with no time for such lofty pursuits as justice and protest? They want that? They want to be a sh*thole country?

So, for instance, right now Barr’s argument for why Trump is exonerated is akin to this scenario: Bob hires Jack to kill Steve, but Jack does not carry out Bob’s wishes, and therefore because he refused to kill Steve, Bob is not guilty of a crime. Furthermore, Bob instructs Jack to lie to the cops about what he did or did not do, but since Jack didn’t actually carry out the crime of murder, Bob is not guilty of obstruction of justice.

I mean, there are probably right now a lot of folks in jail thinking…em…realllyyy????

To be honest, personally, I think the average republican voter is falling for the oldest trick in the book, the bait and switch, with all the masks of righteous indignation, they are spoon-fed the lies they want to hear. The devil really is in the details, of why separation of justice and government is essential to a fair society, that leadership should NOT have such a stranglehold on the judgments and processes, the laws, the very constitution, changing on the fly the role of leadership to not serve the people, but instead themselves, changing the rules to protect a swamp thing.

I suppose you could say Barr in essence has become that proverbial straw that broke the camels back, the toadie that has once and for all shown that giving any of them the benefit of the doubt is dangerous.

And in the sage words of one of my favourite humans, the late Carl Sagan…

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark